There is a world of unlimited opportunities beyond medical education, observed Madras High Court while refusing to accept the plea of a second-year MBBS student, KS Manoj, to allow him to continue his studies in any private college as he was relieved from the Government Thoothukudi Medical College following a court order over his low score in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), stated a report in The New Indian Express.
"The petitioner is not entitled to any equitable consideration as he had come up with a false case. Therefore, we do not find any equitable consideration to grant him relief," the first bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy recently said, while dismissing the petition filed by the student.
Manoj was admitted to the medical college during 2021-22 academic year owing to an interim order of the high court on a petition filed by him claiming a NEET score of 597 out of 720. However, his score turned out to be 248 in the results uploaded by the National Testing Agency (NTA).
He was dismissed from the Government Thoothukudi Medical College following the order by a single judge dismissing his petition in 2023, after the OMR sheet was thoroughly verified and it was found to be in pristine condition and not tampered with. A division bench had confirmed the order last year.
The bench headed by Justice Gangapurwala, in the recent order, said, "It is true and sad that the petitioner had lost two years and was undergoing the MBBS course for two years in the litigation process of two rounds. But we trust that the truth in black and white, in the form of the OMR sheet, was very much for the petitioner to see and therefore, he has to reconcile. There is a world of unlimited opportunities beyond medical admission too."
Referring to the petitioner's claim that his score was 594 as per an image he downloaded online using Google, before the results were uploaded, the bench said the image was incorrect.
Even if it is actually downloaded from the NTA website, the difference is not one or two. The petitioner had attempted 157 questions only and had not attempted 23 questions. As many as 81 answers were found to be correct and 76 answers were found to be wrong and thus, the petitioner was awarded 248 marks. In this background, when the score had come as 594, the difference in marks was 346, the bench said.
